Zina Laws and the Problem of Rape

Lately, I've been focusing on issues in the Middle East. I do this because while there are no shortage of women's rights concerns in the United States and the West in general, the problems facing Middle Eastern women are particularly vexing.

While reading Jan Goodwin's informative and well written Price of Honor (a New York Times Notable Book), I learned about the zina laws in Pakistan. Using the ever helpul Google search page, I read more about these laws:

With the adoption of zina laws, for the first time in Pakistan's history, fornication became a crime against the state and along with adultery, made non-compoundable , non-bailable and punishable by death (HRW 1992:34). Moreover, the legal definition of zina blurs the line between adultery, fornication and rape. For the purpose of the ordinance, zina is defined as "sexual intercourse without being validly married." Zina-bil-jabr, rape, is defined as "sexual intercourse without being validly married" when it occurs without consent. Legally this means that if it cannot be proved that sex occurred without consent (rape), the sex itself becomes a crime against the state. Although to date no woman convicted under these laws has been stoned to death in Pakistan, zina laws allow for greater control of women within state sanctioned interpretations of the sacred books of Islam. (1)

The crux of the problem with zina laws is that officials will only declare that a woman has been raped after four men have come forward as witnesses to the rape; otherwise the officials deem the woman to have consented to "fornication". The fact is that for one man to have witnessed the rape, let alone four, and not have stopped it, he was probably a participant in the rape. Therefore, having four witnesses come forward is next to impossible. Yet there remains an even greater problem: the refusal for officials in society to even acknowledge that rape occurs in Pakistan. A prosecutor in the D.A.'s office in Lahore stated, "I don't believe in rape. Women's consent is always there. Our society does not allow rape." Another prosecutor confirmed this apparently pervasive sentiment: "Virtually all rape cases are fabricated. After all, if a man tries to rape a woman, she can slap him." (2)

She can slap him? I would love to see the effectiveness of a woman slapping a man to prevent rape.

It gets worse: under the zina laws, if a woman is found to be raped--or in Pakistan's overwhelming view--to have fornicated, she will be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years and have to pay a fine.

Sources:
(1) Zina Laws in Pakistan
http://zinalaws.tripod.com/ZinaLaws/

(2) Goodwin, Jane. Price of Honor. Plume: New York, 2003, p. 51.